The National
Science Foundation's Tokyo Regional Office periodically reports on developments
in Japan that are related to the Foundation's mission. It also provides
occasional re-ports on developments in other East Asian countries. These reports
are intended to provide information for the use of NSF program officers and
policy makers; they are not statements of NSF policy.
University Reform: A Perennial Issue
There is considerable discussion these days, within the Japanese higher education establishment, the government, and the popular press, about the desirability of reforming and restructuring the Japanese university system. This will not come as a surprise to any long-time observer of the country's higher education system. For reform of the university system has been a familiar topic of discussion for well over a decade. In fact, some significant changes have taken place during that time, many of them intended to relax the restrictions imposed on the 99 national universities under its direct control by the Ministry of Education (Monbusho). For example, national universities are now at liberty to hire foreign faculty, and industrial scientists are permitted to conduct on-campus cooperative with university faculty colleagues. University faculty may now patent discoveries resulting from their research and are entitled to receive at least partial remuneration should those discoveries prove to be profitable. Universities themselves are now permitted, and indeed encouraged, to establish Technology Licensing Offices (TLOs).
Even though university reform is a perennial topic for discussion in Japan, two factors may account for the unusual seriousness with which it is currently being taken. First, the laws passed by the Diet to implement the reorganization and reform of the Japanese Government, scheduled to take place on January 1, 2001 (see Tokyo Report Memorandum ##99-11, dated October 7, 1999) include provisions to relax the control that Monbusho currently exercises over the national universities by changing their status to that of quasi-autonomous Independent Administrative Agencies effective in Japanese Fiscal Year 2003, which begins on April 1, 2003. Thenceforth the universities will have more authority over such internal matters as their governance systems and their curricula. However, there is still considerable debate on the extent of their authority in such matters. They will continue to receive baseline funding from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (the provisional name of the new ministry to be created on January 1, 2001, by merging Monbusho and STA). But there will be few if any government-wide restrictions on seeking support for special educational and research activities from sources other than the parent ministry. In exchange for granting the universities autonomy, the government plans to increase the fraction of research support available to university faculty through competitive grants relative to the guaranteed, formula-based support automatically provided to groups headed by full professors. Also in the future the amount of non-competitive, formula-based research support received by a university department from Monbusho's successor is to be determined as a result of external evaluation of past performance.
Many university faculty members, particularly those at institutions not usually regarded as among the country’s premier research universities, are apprehensive about these impending changes. Most admit the need to reform a system that is overly rigid and in many ways has become antiquated. However, they would prefer that reform should be initiated internally rather than being imposed by government fiat. Indeed, there is considerable suspicion among university faculty that the government has undertaken its reform plan primarily as a way to reduce future allocations to the universities. No doubt one of the principal reasons why the government decided to change the status of the national universities is to reduce the total number of government employees. But for their part, university faculty are reluctant to give up their current status as civil servants.
Other faculty members welcome the coming transition to autonomy as a means for their universities to establish innovative research and education programs independent of the central government that will permit them to compete more effectively for good students and research funds.
A second factor underlying the desirability for serious reform is the continuing decline in the population of young people. In 1992, there were approximately 2 million 18 year olds in Japan; by 2010 that number will have declined to 1.2 million. Additionally, what many Japanese commentators regard as an “alarming” fraction of 18 year olds now seem disinclined to pursue higher education at all or, for that matter, even seek full time employment! First year student enrollments in the country’s junior colleges are currently 30 percent below the capacity of those institutions, and several private universities are also experience a continuing decline in their enrollments. The national universities, particularly those somewhat down on the pecking order, are almost certain to experience similar declines in enrollment within a very few years. Thus, self-reform with a view towards attracting good students to innovative programs is becoming a matter of self-interest and even survival. The impending transition to the at least quasi-autonomous status of Independent Administrative Agencies could be important in encouraging such self-reform.
The Japanese University Pecking Order
The pecking order of Japan’s national universities, which has not changed in decades, is determined largely by the success with which their graduates find employment in prestigious organizations, including corporations and government ministries. The seven former Imperial Universities created prior to World War II are at the top of the heap. These are: Hokkaido, Tohoku, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka and Kyushu[1]. (Actually, there were formerly nine Imperial Universities, the remaining two being Taipei and Seoul.) The second tier national universities include those created relatively recently as purposefully innovative institutions, including Tsukuba University (created in 1970), the Japan Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (JAIST, created in 1990) and its sister institution, the Nara Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (NAIST, created in 1991). A small number of private universities are also considered to be highly desirable from the perspective of future employment prospects (as well as research excellence) including, for example, Keio[2], Waseda, and Sophia.
The first and second tier universities together with the better private universities have the status of truly national institutions. Most of the country’s remaining institutions of higher education primarily serve local needs.
Generally speaking, the second tier universities welcome the coming change in their status as a means to increase their competitive edge, while the lesser ranked institutions are apprehensive. The top seven former Imperial Universities are generally thought to be relatively aloof, regarding themselves as invulnerable and their place in the pecking order as an entitlement. However, this is not entirely the case. Even the venerable University of Tokyo, (or “Todai” from the first syllables of Tokyo Daigaku, Japanese for Tokyo University) is exploring the feasibility of creating innovative research and education programs.
Reform at Todai?
One intriguing example of a novel research-cum-education initiative is the Tokyo University Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, which accepted its first class of 50 into its Masters program in April 2000.
As suggested by its name, the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies and its research arm, the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, are interdisciplinary programs, the majority of whose faculty are on three year loans from other university departments (or “faculties”). Students enrolled in the graduate school may take courses elsewhere in the university. Among the 50 students its two Masters degree courses, 50 percent are women, less than 30 percent are Todai graduates, and approximately 45 percent are shakaijin–that is, individuals who are either employed and enrolled on a part time basis, or who have taken leaves of absence from their positions to enroll as full time students.
While none of these statistics would be regarded as remarkable in the United States, in Japan they are almost unheard of. A brief consideration of the traditional, regulated internal structures that have characterized most national universities provides insight into one reason why research and education initiatives have been relatively rare in Japan. The fact that these interdisciplinary innovations have been undertaken by what is often regarded as perhaps the most conservative university in Japan (in large measure because it has been at the top of the pecking order for as long as anyone can remember) suggests that other intriguing initiatives may well emerge at other Japanese universities as they prepare for their new roles as quasi-autonomous Independent Administrative Agencies.
Administrative and Structural Barriers
The primary organizational unit at Japanese national universities, as prescribed by Monbusho’s regulations, is the Faculty (gakabu): e.g., of Science, Engineering, Letters, Economics, Law, or Medicine. Each faculty is further subdivided into departments approximately equivalent to those in U.S. universities, such as the departments of mathematics, physics, and chemistry, within the Faculty of Science, for example.
Although critics frequently contend that there is too little interaction between, say, the physics and economics departments at most U.S. universities, interactions among the various faculties at Japanese universities has traditionally been virtually non-existent. This has been the case both for instruction and research. Japanese undergraduates are admitted into a particular faculty and take courses mainly from members of that faculty. Indeed, it is rare for a student to transfer to another faculty within the same university, and unheard of to transfer to a different university. With few exceptions, research cooperation among members of different faculties does not occur, and there is no system of joint appointments between departments or faculties as in US universities. (Indeed, frequently there is little communication between research groups within the same department.) Institutes and centers have been established at several universities as one means to encourage interdisciplinary research. A few, such as the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST) at Tokyo University or the Institute for Frontier Medical Science at Kyoto, appear to be achieving their objective of promoting genuine interdisciplinary research. But many seem to exist primarily to provide services and research facilities to scientists whose principal loyalty is to their respective faculties.
Beginning in the early 1980s the Japanese Government, through Monbusho, began to encourage the national universities to place greater emphasis on research and graduate education as opposed to their traditionally strong emphasis on undergraduate instruction. As a result, greater emphasis began to be placed on university graduate schools, which have existed for much of the century. One might surmise on the basis of university organization charts that graduate schools–of Engineering, Science, Economics, and Law, for example–exist in parallel with respective faculties with the same designations. In reality, the faculties remain the principal, legal administrative units of the universities, with the respective graduate schools organized as subsidiary sub-units.
One, no doubt unintended consequence of the creation of graduate schools may have been a decline in student and faculty mobility, including science and engineering disciplines. Unlike the situation at undergraduate colleges within most U.S. research universities, members of Japanese faculties encourage their best undergraduates to enroll in graduate programs within their subsidiary graduate schools. Students who decide to pursue the Ph.D. degree will normally remain with the research groups where they conducted their Masters projects. Only a relatively small fraction of students enter graduate programs at universities other than those from which they receive their undergraduate training, or even in schools attached to different faculties within the same university. If a fresh Ph.D. elects an academic career (which a large majority still do), the typical pattern is to accept a post doctoral research position within that same group, followed by a faculty position, then move up the academic ladder within that group and, eventually, attain the status of full professor and group leader. As a result of this system, Japanese universities, particularly national universities, are notoriously inbred. It is not uncommon for full professors of science or engineering to have spent their entire academic career beginning with their freshmen year at that university.
Although inbreeding is recognized as being undesirable, no really effective remedies seem to have been suggested. On the other hand, various attempts are being made to place instruction at the graduate level on a more systematic footing. The creation of graduate schools has not had as much impact on instruction as Monbusho might have wished. Graduate schools remain subsidiary to parent faculties which rarely communicate so that innovative, cross-disciplinary programs at either the undergraduate or graduate levels remain rare. Additionally, since most faculty members must continue to provide instruction to undergraduates as well as engage in research, instruction at the graduate level outside a student's research specialty is often haphazard. Students are assigned research projects within an existing group and learn the relevant specialty from more senior group members. Beyond that, although some organized courses may be offered, graduate students are frequently expected to teach themselves other, broader aspects of their disciplines.
Monbusho has authorized several pilot efforts in an attempt to facilitate improvements in graduate instruction, particularly in science. For example, the Japan Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (JAIST, near Kanazawa) and the Nara Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (NAIST, in Nara) were established in 1991 and 1992, respectively, as national universities which, since they admit no undergraduates, assign a high priority to providing systematic instruction at the graduate level. Since both institutions have existed for less than a decade, they do not suffer from the inbreeding that characterizes other national universities–at least not yet.
In 1998 at the request of Monbusho, the Diet enacted legislation to permit national universities to create graduate schools that are independent of any existing faculty. Todai was among the first universities to take advantage of this opportunity by creating the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies with both masters and doctoral level programs, with the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies created as its research arm.
Todai’s Information Studies Initiative
The closely linked Graduate School and Interfaculty Initiative are virtually unique in Japan in several respects. First, they are genuinely interdisciplinary endeavors, a point that will be amplified presently. Second, two linked organizations have been created rather than a single unit that might continue to stress research at the expense of systematic instruction and to encourage research across disciplinary boundaries. Instruction in the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies is provided primarily by the 32-member faculty associated with the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies. However, students enrolled in the two Masters programs (as in the Doctoral programs that will begin in April 2002 when the first class in the Masters programs graduate) may also enroll in courses taught elsewhere on campus. The 32 members of the Interfaculty Initiative are encouraged to conduct cooperative research projects not only among themselves, but also with researchers elsewhere on campus. The latter objective should be facilitated in view of the fact that a majority comes from other faculties.
A third unique aspect of these endeavors is that only five of the 32 members of the Interfaculty Initiative, headed by the Dean of the Graduate School, Dr. Junichi Hamada (formerly Professor in Tokyo University's Institute of Socio-Information and Communication Studies) are permanent appointees. The rest, as already noted, are on three-year appointments from other parts of the university, the intention being that most of them will rotate back to their former positions and be replaced with a new group from various Tokyo University faculties. If several succeed in initiating worthwhile collaborative research projects during their three-year appointments, it is anticipated that many of those collaborative projects will persist after most return to their home faculties. In this way, some of the existing barriers between faculties may begin to erode.
A fourth unique feature of the graduate school programs is that they actively seek students who are employed and either wish to enroll on a part time basis or take a leave from their jobs to pursue full time studies. As already noted, approximately 45 percent of those admitted into the program for the current year are in one of these two categories. Two basic courses of study are offered, both of which can be tailored to the needs of individual students: (1) the Interdisciplinary Information Studies Course, intended for those who want to gain broad competence in information studies, and (2) the Practical Information Studies Course intended for those who want to concentrate on some specific aspects of information studies. Most of the older, employed students elect the second option since, typically, after working for several years they have discovered that knowledge of and competence in some specific aspects of information studies have become critical to their career aspirations. They include engineers, individuals in banking and related industries, people working in the media and in museums, for example.
The Disciplinary Reach of Information Studies
The wide range of backgrounds of the older, already employed students in the program reflects the interdisciplinary character of both the new graduate school. Faculty members in the Interdisciplinary Initiative organization have been drawn not just from the traditional information sciences, but from the social sciences and humanities as well. They identify their fields as, for example: software engineering, visual perception, information: institutions and ethics, computer architecture, ecological psychology, digital economics, medical informatics, socio-media, information literacy, and free expression and cyberspace law.
The first group of students accepted into the graduate school will not complete their master's courses until March 2002, nor will any of these students qualify for entry into the doctoral program until that time. Thus, it is too early to evaluate how well the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies and the linked Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies are meeting their objectives, nor how well the instructional programs are fulfilling the expectations of the students.
However, the fact that such a truly innovative education-cum-research program was established and ready to accept its first students barely a year after the Diet enacted legislation to make it possible, suggests that there may well be numerous innovative ideas brewing in academic institutions throughout Japan that will emerge as full blown programs in the next few years. The emergence of such programs throughout the Japanese national university system could signify that those universities are fully capable of taking advantage of the autonomy they will enjoy after April 1, 2003, to undertake positive, internal reforms consistent with the challenges of the 21st century.
Acknowledgement
The assistance of Kenneth Pechter, Associate Professor in the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, is gratefully acknowledged. Pechter, who holds engineering degrees from the University of California, Irvine, lists his specialty as Network Based Innovation.
(Prepared by William Blanpied, Director, National Science Foundation Tokyo Regional Office)
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[1]. These seven institutions also account for the lion's share of the academic research conducted in Japan. During Japanese Fiscal Year 2000, approximately ¥ 98.8 billion ($940 million) research grants were awarded on a competitive basis by Monbusho and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to investigators in Japanese universities. Twenty universities accounted for ¥ 57.8 billion ($550 million) of this total, with researchers at the seven former imperial universities (ranking first to seventh among these 20) accounting for ¥ 41.1 billion ($390 million), or 42 percent of the total awarded. The two top ranked universities-Tokyo and Kyoto-together accounted for ¥19.0 billion ($180 million), or 19 percent.
[2]. Keio was the only private university ranked among the top 20 institutions in terms of the yen value of competitive grants awarded by Monbusho and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science during Japanese Fiscal Year 2000.